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“Your God is Not Moral?”

“Your God is not good” or “your God is not moral” is a cry from deep within someone’s soul that always gets me right in the gut. That is a cry born of pain and frustration, of great injustice and grief. “If God were good He wouldn’t have allowed all the things I’ve seen to happen.” I hear the pain behind that statement, but I can’t fix it, I can’t take it away. There simply are no magic answers to that question. It’s a heart matter, not a head matter, one you have to reconcile with God yourself.

Women will do this sometimes, in response to abuse, in response to kids getting sick and dying, just this kind of revoked authority, as if to tell God, you aren’t worthy, I’m so angry with you, you don’t even exist anymore. I’m more moral than you are. I care so, so, much more than God does.

That’s just pride, fear, anger, mostly pride, this powerful need to show our disapproval, to withdraw our allegiance. Total no confidence vote. I’ve struggled there a few times myself. I call it divorcing Jesus Christ, in my case never quite severing that tie, because when I’ve stomped off I tend to take Him with me….to yell at some more for breaking my whole world.

I understand the heart behind it, but it still defies logic and reason, it’s a form of cognitive dissonance. By what standard do we judge the morality of God? Is it not His very standard that teaches us to hate what He hates? In the absence of God we don’t even have a right to our own rage, to our own cry of “immoral.” Immoral by whose standard? Are clumps of cells immoral? Do spiders grieve for the flies they eat?

Our own standard is a subjective standard that has just declared ourselves wiser, more moral, more just, than the Creator of the universe. The moment we start believing our own opinions are vastly superior to the One who made us, we’ve revealed a flaw in our own reasoning.

I empathize because I can hear the pain and the grief behind it, but I get angry too because I see the pride and I wonder, why do we always think it is all about us, all of the time? As if no one else in the world has ever suffered, too! As if they don’t need you to point them to God, rather than running about declaring He doesn’t exist. One’s own alleged vast moral superiority, the one that believes itself more empathetic and wiser than God Himself, has now decided that most moral thing one can do in the world is to go about telling people there is no hope and that God is immoral.

Sometimes we deceive our own selves, completely lacking self-awareness, as we display our vast empathy towards others by promptly informing them, your God is not good! That’s not empathy, its pure selfishness disguised as virtue. In truth you aren’t even thinking of the needs of another person, you’re thinking of your own needs, of the need for an ally, someone to affirm your own cognitive dissonance, someone to make you not feel so crazy. That’s not empathy at all, its pride and selfishness and fear.

I’ve been there, running on that hamster wheel myself, torn somewhere between God is good and yet God allowed the unthinkable to happen, trying to reconcile those two truths that seem to exist in opposition to one another. The only thing I know to do is to step off the hamster wheel, surrender all at the foot of the cross, and accept that there are some things we are never going to fully understand this side of heaven. Sometimes we have to just close our eyes, trust, and lean not into our own understanding. One thing I do know, our own understanding can make us downright nutty sometimes.

It is not moral, it is not empathetic, it is not virtuous to go about telling other people that God is not good, not moral, and He doesn’t care. In fact, that very act is all we need to see to prove that one is actually behaving in an immoral manner, consumed by selfishness and lacking empathy. That makes one less moral than God Himself, which renders one unworthy to judge God by the standard…..one has gone and borrowed from Him in the first place.

Selfishness can be really painful. When it’s born of grief I have a really hard time telling people to stop obsessing over their own suffering, to stop believing it is all about them, all of the time, and yet that really is the fastest way out of that pain. That is genuine empathy, the kind that actually speaks the truth and rips the band-aid off quickly.

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11 thoughts on ““Your God is Not Moral?””

I just love your writing, IB. It cuts right to the heart of the issues. I’m currently reading King’s Cross by Timothy Keller and he touches on this problem here and there. Thank you for the reminder that God’s wisdom far exceeds our own. We could all (we meaning me) could use a bit more humility.

A man was trapped in his house during a flood. He began praying to God to rescue him. He had a vision in his head of God’s hand reaching down from heaven and lifting him to safety. The water started to rise in his house. His neighbour urged him to leave and offered him a ride to safety. The man yelled back, “I am waiting for God to save me.” The neighbor drove off in his pick-up truck.

The man continued to pray and hold on to his vision. As the water began rising in his house, he had to climb up to the roof. A boat came by with some people heading for safe ground. They yelled at the man to grab a rope they were ready to throw and take him to safety. He told them that he was waiting for God to save him. They shook their heads and moved on.

The man continued to pray, believing with all his heart that he would be saved by God. The flood waters continued to rise. A helicopter flew by and a voice came over a loudspeaker offering to lower a ladder and take him off the roof. The man waved the helicopter away, shouting back that he was waiting for God to save him. The helicopter left. The flooding water came over the roof and caught him up and swept him away. He drowned.

When he reached heaven and asked, “God, why did you not save me? I believed in you with all my heart. Why did you let me drown?” God replied, “I sent you a pick-up truck, a boat and a helicopter and you refused all of them. What else could I possibly do for you?”

Here’s what it sounds like when someone says God is not good: “I loathe my life. I will give utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God, ‘Do not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me. Does it seem good to you to oppress, to despise the work of your hands and to favor the designs of the wicked?'” (Job 10:1-3) It continues in the same vein for a while. When God speaks, though, Job says, “Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on ,my mouth.” (Job 40:4). Is that the kind of conversation you used to have with the Lord? J.

Oh no, another painful journey down Memory Lane! In days quite thankfully gone by, I was once in such a drug induced stupor that I actually believed that I was the center of the universe. When I left the room, everything left behind, ceased to exist. That was definitely the epitome of self-realization – NOT to be confused with self-awareness.

One is a profound admiration of, and puffing up of, ego. The other permits humility to take its proper place in revealing how we compare to others, including God. The former relies on pride, the latter on sincerity – without which BOTH can be equally delusional and destructive.

Your solution is, in my opinion, the only right one (if I owned a hamster wheel). Sadly, whenever we forget that terms like ‘moral’ and ‘God’ are actually synonymous, we indeed prove that we really don’t know and trust Go as much as we profess. Life must be well-grounded in the understanding that God is GOOD, ALL the time. Attempting to comprehend the evil that also exists without THAT filter is futility personified.

One concession – grief is a process best NOT interrupted. There is no set standard or time-line appropriate to all. Each of us must experience it deeply and personally, at an introduction to tragedy. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are necessary stages of the framework that makes up our learning to live with unexpected and unreasonable calamity. During such seasons, self-centeredness is unavoidable and the truly empathetic will realize the need to extend grace, not judgment towards those grieving.

While in general, I agree with your statement: “That is genuine empathy, the kind that actually speaks the truth and rips the Band-Aid off quickly”, you might want to reconsider your bed-side manner in some cases, doctor. Peace!

“The only thing I know to do is to step off the hamster wheel, surrender all at the foot of the cross, and accept that there are some things we are never going to fully understand this side of heaven. Sometimes we have to just close our eyes, trust, and lean not into our own understanding.”

Very good. That’s the key in practice, but this is only valid, indeed only consistently possible, if the glory of the Lord is the highest good.

A few years ago I was telling a women, a Facebook friend, about the doctrines of grace and the full Godhood of God in His meticulous all governing decrees and providence. A few days into that dialog, her 8 year old nephew was hit and killed by a drunk driver. (here in Detroit) She and her sister were understandably very distraught and grieved.

She asked me in the messenger if God had “decreed” such a horror and rendered it infallibly certain that it would occur without being morally responsible for it like I was teaching her?

I told her (very gently) that He had indeed predestined even this terrible event.

She was furious. “WHAT KIND OF GOD WOULD DO SUCH A THING?!?!?!”

I asked if she would prefer it if He hadn’t? That He was doing the best He could, but things got away from Him? That death and evil DID triumph in God’s creation despite His most strenuous best efforts to prevent it? “Is this the God you prefer to worship my dear?” (yes, I said my dear) I asked. “A God who is defeated by death and sin?”

One word answer:

No

I could sense her anguish coming through that messenger box.

I explained to her that if God had not predestined all things, including all sin and evil, then she and her sister had no hope in this circumstance. It was either the case that random meaningless death and pain ruled the universe or that Satan and sin were the ones ultimately in charge.

I went on: WHAT IF, a God who’s holy righteous wisdom, power AND LOVE had in fact decreed this thing for a purpose sufficient unto Himself for His own glory? IF HIS glory and honor are the highest possible purpose and good in all of creation, and the creator has determined that this boy’s painful death serve that highest good, then not only does his death have A purpose, but it has THE HIGHEST purpose of all.

IF somebody can believe that God’s glory is an infinitely higher good and purpose than their own, or anybody else’s own comfort, then they will not only enjoy the great comfort of the sovereign God THROUGH the pain, but also be a rock of stability and comfort to those they would encounter in other painful circumstances for the rest of their life as well.

The greater the horror and the greater the pain, the greater the opportunity to trust Him by faith and testify of His immovable might, which He makes ours in Christ.

Don’t you see? This is not just about having the best theology and being right for the sake of it. It’s about how precise faithfulness to God’s word for His glory alone, ALSO IS best for us and those we want to minster to in His name.

This post of yours gave me the best opportunity to explain this so far.

Kudos to you! While many may naively consider your post an extremely Calvinistic approach, discernment under a true anointing of the Holy Spirit should reveal the logic and reason behind it.

Simply put, God is good, ALL the time. While many accept that as infinitely true, few realize that because that is true, the godly predestination of ALL events in life MUST also be. If God does not control EVERYTHING, how can He promise anything? His promise “that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” depends implicitly upon His ability to predestine ALL THINGS.

There is great mystery here. We don’t understand how not one atom in all the vast cosmos dare twitch apart from His all governing decree, and yet men are commanded to choose and are held fatally accountable if they do it wrongly.

The assembly understood plainly that this is a mystery:WCF ch.III sect. VIII
VIII. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending to the will of God revealed in his Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God; and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel.

They didn’t comprehend it either.

Yes, how can all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose if He’s not ultimately working all things? The key lies in us defining “good” the way He does, instead of the way we want it to be. This is where wisdom and compassion in ministry come ion. Of course you can’t smack an abuse victim or a parent who’s lost a child upside the head with this truth and call it a day. It does whoever have to be the driving motivation in all that we do. God will give that wisdom as we honor Him before others.

The death of my friend’s nephew, while horrifically painful to them, especially as the result of someone’s sinful drunkenness, in the light of a perfectly holy and invincibly sovereign God, can then and ONLY then be seen as serving the greatest good.

It’s not because of who or what I am that He loves me. But for His own name’s sake in spite of who and what I am. What better news could there be for somebody who’s been beaten to a pulp by life? You don’t need to worry about how dirty and filthy and crummy or even angry you are. (for now) He’s not fixing you for you. He’s fixing you for Himself. How good a job do you think He’s gonna do? 🙂 And the more messed up YOU are, the more credit (glory) HE gets. 😀

Think about Abraham. He waits all those years for a miracle son, the covenant promise of the LORD, and then finally his beloved boy arrives, whom he adores as few fathers since ever have.

God gives him several years to become REALLY attached to the lad. Then He tells Abraham, not only that this son was going to die, OR even that Abraham would have to take him to be killed, but that Abraham HIMSELF would have to kill him! Stab him to death face to face, and had the Lord not stopped him, Abraham would have done it!!!

Ohhhhhhh friends, that’s some trust right there!!! He understood some things:.

The Lord, He is God, and I am not. Whatever He has going on here, it’s His will and therefore higher and more important than all my feelings.”

It’s not that we don’t know God’s purpose for the terrible things that happen in the world. They are for His glory and yes for our good, in that order. We may not find out the particulars of that in this life as Gabrielle said, or ever actually, but trusting Him and His purpose is the greatest comfort we could ever hope for.

There are pagan parents who will proudly accept a pagan medal for their pagan son from a pagan president for giving his life in the service of their pagan country. Should the people of the most high God do less for Him?

As storms roll across Oklahoma this Friday Afternoon, I’m reminded of the man hit by lightning 7 times. “God keeps reminding me I’m lucky to be alive.” said at the end of this video with excerpts from the 2008 movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” https://youtu.be/zHTP3S6feYo